From the text: The Manifesto has already received strong criticism from an array of commentators, but none of these assessments has yet critiqued it from the perspective of “degrowth,” which is an approach that sees the transition to sustainability occurring through less environmentally impactful economic activities and a voluntary contraction of material throughput of the economy, to reduce humanity’s aggregate resource demands on the biosphere. From a degrowth perspective, technology is not viewed as a magical savior since many technologies actually accelerate environmental decline. With these disagreements in mind, a group of over fifteen researchers from the degrowth scholarship community has written a detailed refutation of the Ecomodernist Manifesto. . .
Authors and Endorsers: Jeremy Caradonna, Iris Borowy, Tom Green, Peter A. Victor, Maurie Cohen, Andrew Gow, Anna Ignatyeva, Matthias Schmelzer, Philip Vergragt, Josefin Wangel, Jessica Dempsey, Robert Orzanna, Sylvia Lorek, Julian Axmann, Rob Duncan, Richard B. Norgaard, Halina S. Brown, Richard Heinberg > Full article
Degrowth addresses the negative consequences of consumerism (psychological stress, long working hours and positional competition) and discusses the benefits of frugal lifestyles. Henri Lefebvre, a French philosopher from the 20th century, argues that if ideas or values are not physically implemented in space, they become mere fantasies. As such, if degrowth wishes to prevail, it has to leave it...
For the third year in a row, the Degrowth Summer School is being held on the Climate Camp in the Rhineland. It runs from the 18th to 23rd of August. Just 10 days before the start of the Summer School the foundation „Stiftung Umwelt und Entwicklung Nordrhein-Westfalen“ has cancelled our funding. The reason they‘ve given us: The Summer School takes place too close to actions of civil disobedience...
By Manuel Pérez-Rocha The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a comprehensive free trade and investment treaty currently being negotiated – in secret – between the European Union and the USA with massive implications for people and the environment on both sides of the Atlantic. The stakes couldn´t be higher but not only for European [...]
